Today we’d like to introduce you to Susie Cobb.
Hi Susie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Toward the end of 2020, I was in a perpetual cycle of burnout, fueled by several years of juggling weekend Maser’s classes and a 60-hour work week as a producer in post-production. I, like many others, had been swooned by the promises of hustle culture and dreams of “getting ahead”. It was the peak of the pandemic and social isolation. We as a culture had passed through the novelty of banana bread, garden plots and pickling. I saw many of my friends slipping into states of distress and depression. I too was falling backward on this slope.
Then something magical and terrifying happened. I became pregnant. Like many modern mothers, I took to Google to find online support systems, health facts and tips on how to “optimize” my experience of motherhood and hopefully increase my unborn child’s chances of thriving in the world. As I entered into my final courses in grad school, I began to realize that outside of my learnings on child development, I had no education on maternal mental health or the motherhood experience. While California has some of the most stringent requirements for therapists to become licensed, requiring a 3,000 hour practicum period, there is no requirement to take courses on maternal mental health. The stats on perinatal mental health outcomes are staggering. 1 in 7 women will develop postpartum depression. Anxiety during pregnancy is estimated at 35% while postpartum anxiety disorders are estimated at 20%. Postpartum suicide has tripled from 2006 to 2017. As I began to learn these facts through the lens of my own budding motherhood and my role as a new therapist, I became outraged that I had not been taught more about this population that I believe is so vital to the well-being of our communities.
The day my son was born was the day of my last class for my graduate program. Miraculously I graduated on time and emerged with a beautiful and healthy baby boy. Complications from my pregnancy landed me in the hospital for several days postpartum and required surgery and several blood transfusions before I could return home. All through my healing, I began reading stories of birth trauma (CB-PTSD) and discovered that 1 in 3 women will experience the effects of this diagnosis, some lasting for several years if not for a lifetime. I processed my birth story while processing the birth stories of many mothers who had come before me. I began to wonder what factors helped me to reduce the severity of symptoms and seemingly escape these long-term effects.
Leaving home at 17, due to an array of family dysfunction, I learned quickly how to outsource my family. When I became pregnant, I assembled a team of professional and social supports to hold me in this tender time. It was not easy. In pregnancy, my history of depression and anxiety came back to haunt me as I processed fears that my growing family would succumb to similar tragedies of my childhood. I worked very hard to heal these parts of me and in doing so, unknowingly, I set myself up for a postpartum experience full of resilience and support. The day I gave birth, I called my therapist and psychiatrist from the labor room. My midwife, doula, and mental health team spent hours with me talking through my experience. I believe know that these pillars of support were crucial to my physical and mental recovery. Coming through this process, I realized the deficit in our maternal mental health system and became determined to offer resources to other mothers.
In 2022, Therapy for Mamas was born. I developed a workshop on Birth Trauma and offered it for free at several mom groups in the area. I began connecting with mothers in the community, hearing their stories and finding ways to build their resilience factors and foster their healing. Eager to learn more, I consulted with many perinatal therapists to improve my understanding of issues affecting mothers in the US. I am still in my practicum period as a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist. I currently work with families and adolescents in treatment, in private practice with perinatal clients and as a parent coach.
My work is based on the belief that if we take care of the mother, we take care of the world. Mothers are the foundation of our society and yet are so often left behind in issues of legislation, healthcare and social support. I believe that if we can support mothers by providing tools for their own healing, we will have a landslide effect on our children and communities. Through this process, I am able to reflect on my own experience as a mother and feel so incredibly grateful to be able to explore deeper parts of myself in this context.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I often tell clients that there are limitations to talk therapy. Neuroscience has come a long way since Freud first developed the field of psychology. We are learning more about the physiological effects of trauma on the body every day. Somatic Experiencing, developed by Peter Levine, is one form of psychotherapy that endeavors to address this issue by providing a bottom-up approach to healing through resetting the nervous system and recalibrate and individual’s fight or flight system. While I do not currently practice SE, I am a firm believer that this and many other types of “alternative” therapy modalities are crucial in a mother’s healing. This fact sometimes weighs on me as I realize that there are some pervasive symptoms that I cannot quickly be healed for my clients. As a wounded healer, I so dearly want to relieve my clients from pain and the realization that this not always possible can be heartbreaking.
Motherhood as a perinatal therapist can also be a challenge. I have found community amongst birth workers, especially the doula community, as they understand the struggle between professional caretaking and personal relationships. I believe wholeheartedly that each client is an expert in their own journey and that my role is help them find the key within them to unlock the door to freedom. However, I often feel myself pulled into a role of advisor when making new mom friends to add to my own personal community. The friendships I have that understand this dilemma and hold space for my own experiences, I cherish deeply.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
One of my favorite aspects of the therapy community is that there is room for all therapists. Every therapist brings their own personal experience, passions and interests into their work. We all have different approaches that will work for different clients. There is a place and a need for us all. The flip side of this is that finding a therapist can be a lot like dating. It can suck at first until you find the right one and it’s important to keep trying until you do find that person.
My focus is in working with mothers who have experienced medical or birth trauma, childhood trauma, perinatal mood disorders (anxiety, depression) and those who struggle with family dysfunction. I also work with many mothers to reduce and prevent burnout, which I believe heavily exacerbates these struggles. Parental burnout often stems from partner conflict, the division of domestic labor in the home, PMAD’s (perinatal mood disorders), lack of support systems and the tendency for women toward excessive productivity as a way to maintain control and soothe anxiety. This cycle of productivity as a means of soothing anxiety unfortunately only perpetuates itself and continued patterns of anxiety. As a culture, we are absolutely terrible at resting; many of us literally have no idea how to do it. And yet rest is so crucial in surviving parenthood, especially in the early years.
I also love parent coaching work and group therapy. Parent coaching is a service to offer to support parents whose goal is to deconstruct damaging parenting narratives they were raised with and offer their children emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills. I believe firmly in authoritative parenting (not to be confused with authoritarian parenting (these are two opposing modalities). Authoritative parenting has similarities with “Connected Parenting” (Dr. Becky Kennedy) or the very popular “Gentle Parenting” (Sarah Ockwell-Smith) method but also asks a parent to firmly hold their role as the leader in their family.
I offer therapy groups each season. Studies show that group therapy has significant positive impact on parental distress, even more so than individual therapy. I believe this is because so many of the experiences of parenthood, especially around rage and resentment, can feel inherently “bad” and produce secondary layers of shame and guilt. This leads to isolation and depression-like symptoms. Bringing these issues into a group setting allows a client to feel seen and have their experience normalized. The results, as I have witnessed, are astounding.
I often tell clients to assess their level of comfort during a consultation and to use that as a guide when choosing whether or not to work with me. I do this for two reasons: I want the client to genuinely assess whether or not they will be able to become vulnerable with me in sessions; I want to model emotional identification and self-advocacy as this is a key piece of the work I do with women. I think these are things we often socialize women to suppress in themselves, which can have lifelong impacts on mental and physical health.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
The pandemic was a collective trauma, the symptoms of which I feel most of us are still struggling to recover from. For mothers, this was experienced as medical trauma, being denied the right to birthing partners, complete isolation postpartum, and intense fear of illness and even death for themselves and their children. These experiences catapulted many new moms into the throws of fight or flight, arresting their nervous systems into a gridlock of dread and anxiety. I find that much of the work I do is in teaching mothers how to release these experiences of trauma from their nervous systems and to heal from three years of mass trauma.
A positive outcome of the pandemic was the wide acceptance of telehealth, especially for moms. Many mothers who had no ability to participate in mental health services due to lack of childcare felt unable to attend therapy. Many people were adverse to the idea of telehealth and regarded it as a “lesser” form of psychotherapy. The pandemic’s lockdown protocols necessitated the widespread adoption of online therapy practices and subsequently opened the door for moms to seek accessible mental healthcare.
Pricing:
- Group Therapy $40/session
- Individual Therapy $200/session
- Sliding Scale Available
- In Network with Cigna
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.therapyformamas.com/
- Instagram: @therapy_for_mamas
Image Credits
Logan Inglesby @loloelizabethphoto (family photos)
